Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrophotographic photosensitive member, a method for producing the same, and a process cartridge and an electrophotographic apparatus that include the electrophotographic photosensitive member.
Description of the Related Art
An example of an electrophotographic photosensitive member installed in a process cartridge or an electrophotographic apparatus includes a support, an undercoat layer containing metal oxide particles and disposed on the support, and a photosensitive layer disposed on the undercoat layer.
In the digital image formation, which is widely used in recent years, when image information that has been converted to a digital electrical signal is written on a photosensitive member as an electrostatic latent image, a laser, in particular, a semiconductor laser or a light-emitting diode (LED) is used as a light source. However, in the electrostatic latent image formation using a laser beam, there may be a particular image problem in that interference fringes are generated due to the reflection on the surface of an electrophotographic photosensitive member.
In order to suppress such interference fringes, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-187771 discloses an under coat layer in which two types of metal oxide particles having different average particle diameters are dispersed in a resin. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-299020 discloses an undercoat layer containing titanium oxide, zinc oxide subjected to a surface treatment with a reactive organosilicon compound, and a binder resin.